The result of what we have written, established the truth, that the fall of Poland was an event which destiny had been preparing for centuries. In an age of barbarism, a great nation had become resolved into separate principalities, and an aristocracy, not definitely limited, if not absolute, had sprung up. The family of the Jagellons came to the throne by a compromise with that nobility; at the extinction of that family, a tumultuous mob exercised tumultuously, by a sort of general enthusiasm, the privilege of electing a monarch; enthusiasm declining, a faction of the high oligarchy succeeded in the election of Sigismund III.; with Michael, the inferior nobility came into power; with Sobieski was introduced the influence of the high nobility, and of female intrigue; with Augustus II. came the reign of gross and undisguised venality; with Augustus III. the controlling presence of a foreign army and domestic anarchy; with Stanislaus the wild fury of religious bigotry, in collision with the treacherous liberality of foreign influence. Every thing had had its day but the real nation; of them no notice had been taken; and though Poland was called a republic, it was a republic without a people. The royal power, the tumultuous patriotism of a nobility, the oligarchical feuds, the democracy of the nobility, the high aristocracy, downright bribery, the direct presence and interference of foreign troops, each had had its period; and is it strange that the anarchy of Poland had become complete? There was not only no government virtually, but even the forms did not exist, by which a government could be effectually set in motion. Is it strange, then, that the party of the patriots was unable to triumph over the obstacles in their path, since they had to contend with the strongest foreign powers, with a domestic political chaos, and with a destiny, which had for ages doomed their country to destruction? The Russians and their coadjutors could never have accomplished their purpose, if the ancestors of the Poles had not themselves prepared the way.